Simple Things
by Caelta
Summary: It's those simple things that seem to matter most, and there's never enough time. McCoy/Chapel


A/N: Hi! So this was inspired by a multitude of things ranging from a line I read in a different fanfiction pertaining to the color of McCoy's eyes, to William Faulkner's The Sound and the Fury (though it's nothing as hard-core as that), to the scene in the new Iron Man movie where Pepper claims she's allergic to strawberries. It's a bit obscure, so I apologize ahead of time if it's confusing. Also, I know his eyes are kinda brown in the movie, but...meh. Yay continuity? Kudos to anyone kind enough to review!

And, as always, I don't own.

* * *

Yeah, we've all been there.

That friendly precipice yawning out before us, and we're not sure whether or not our next step will take us over the edge, tempted, uncertain, begging for the weight to lift. And we could swear that one more pressure – just one tiny push, like the nudge of a passing breeze – that one single more _thing_ sitting on top of us, on top of our chest, compressing our breath and holding it back, will drive us into that thick, dark oblivion.

The loss of all control imminent, we wonder whether or not it would be better to be dragged or to fall. It offers a solace, that darkness, where we long to yell, to punch, to fight as if that would alleviate the nameless foes pressing down upon us. And yet we strain so hard, so hard to keep our balance on that daring edge.

And then we fall.

_The mundane beep of equipment, the hissing of the respirator, the tick of the clock, and the "lights, 25%" voice, smooth and sharp. Heels on tile, noisome echoes. Shouts from across the room. A pervasive smell, sickness and death and bleach, sinking into her clothes, her skin, prominent in her nose. Blue._

"Hey, Chris, you like strawberries, huh?"

_Rasp. Cough. Diphthong. His eyes were so blue, so damn blue. Expressive blue, pale blue, bright blue, piercing and flooded and lucid, drowning in life. Blue with all the moments they had shared, blue with all the moments they never would. Blue, like him._

Christine fell.

"I'll show you some real strawberries—real Georgian strawberries—next shore leave. Ain't nothin' like 'em. Some as big as your palm, big and fat and organic. That's what I like—organic. These replicators, they don't make no strawberries. Not like strawberries should be."

She fell hard and strong, fell to her knees and crumpled, clutched for his hand. Fingers found his, and she held on, begging, begging for him to pull her out, begging for him to come back, begging for the weight to be lifted.

_A weak squeeze, her hand in his. So very weak. Terrifyingly weak. The blue flickered._

"God, I miss it, Chris. The strawberries, the country, the stars. Used to sit up nights, dreaming about what might be up there, wanting it. And here I am, all the way up here with all these stars, wishing to God to go back down there. Life likes to be funny like that."

_Funny_. Christine felt the tug and flow of oblivion ebbing and sucking at her ankles. She sobbed without restraint, tile digging into her knees, and grasped at him like life.

"And the rain…Chris, don't you miss that? Not one thing like it in the world—not one single thing. A nice, good rain that turns up the flesh of the earth and floods the earthworms out into the open, and all that thunder. Maybe a rainbow before or after, if you're lucky. …have to show you some strawberries sometime."

"Leonard, I…" _love you, can't do this_ "I'm allergic to strawberries."

He gave a light chuckle, a broken and silent crackle of sound that wrenched at her heart. "Well, ain't that a shame. Least I know one more thing about you."

_Bathed in blue, tossed in darkness. He favored her, collided her knuckles with his lips. Flesh cold, breath hot. Blanched._

A trickle of sweat made a path down her forehead, mingling with the fresh salt on her cheeks.

What did she know, about him? Things. Important things, small things…but never enough. Even a lifetime couldn't give her all of what she longed to know, but she was given far less. All the simple things that she might have learned…the number of navy flecks sprinkled in his gaze, what music he liked, what he'd wanted to be as a child, whether or not he could roll his tongue or crack his toes…his favorite color. She didn't even know his damn favorite color.

Too little time, and all too soon it would be entirely gone, wrested into a wholly different sort of oblivion. Too many things that she would never find out, and she was afraid, so desperately afraid, that she wouldn't be able to memorize completely the contour and cadence of his face, the pure blue of his eyes, and the lovely lines when he smiled—so irrevocably terrified of losing that image even for a second, that she may have been losing it even then.

_Too soon, ink on paper. He'd be ink, ephemeral, black, apathetic ink printed on paper or the darkness of text on a screen. Just a name. No story. Everything that was him, everything she knew, everything she did not know, gone. So easily discarded. Glanced at without thought, without significance. His eyes—just blue. And he would be gone._

"Y'kno, Chris…I think I sorta love you. Kinda always have, I guess. Funny, how it was right in front of my nose—funny…"

_Blue flickered. Life waned. Just a color. Too soon._

She held her breath, the ringing in her ears accompanied by the chorus of instrument alerts, _the chirping of Georgian crickets in the evening_, and the ache was unbelievable.

Yeah, we've all been there.


End file.
